Please stay asleep little Molly...Mommy is so tired

Molly used to sleep through the night, then we moved to Oregon. I think she wakes up about a bajillion times every single night. Sometimes she is hungry and sometimes she just wants a snuggle. How could I deny her a snuggle if she wants one? So we snuggle and I ponder when the day will come that she will enjoy her bed.  I decided to try feeding her rice cereal and see if she would stay asleep longer. Here is the result of that feeding:

Isn't this the happiest face you have ever seen? Poor Molly. I guess she wasn't interested yet. Oh well...she will sleep through the night eventually, right?

For all you weirdos that love seeing a baby cry here is a video that Kailah took:

Happiness in a box

I have been feeling kind of down in the dumps lately. I don't know if it is the weather or just all the changes in our lives but I have felt kind of bleh. The other day we went to get the mail and to our surprise our box was CRAMMED full of amazing surprises. It is incredible how fast you stop feeling bleh when you get packages in the mail! One HUGE box came for the girls from their Grandma Ruiz. It came with a cute note that said what item was assigned to each girl. It was super fun to read things like "a pink cat shirt for Melanie" and watch the girls frantically dig in the box until they found each item, it was like a treasure hunt! They loved all their new treasures. Kailah loved her beautiful new dress and Melanie can't stop talking about her new Twinkle Toe shoes. And I can't wait to show off Molly's new Halloween outfit! All the other babies are going to be so jealous of how awesome it is! (Thanks Aunt Julia and Grandma Ruiz) I will take a picture of her in it and post it!

The second box came from the #2 Bradshaws. It was The Cousin Box (a super clever idea, very impressive Jen!). Inside the cousin box were 2 awesome pictures from Seth and Eldon, a rattle for Molly that is her new favorite toy, tattoos, lip gloss and best of all some snap bracelets. People are always asking if we plan on trying for a boy someday, I don't know why we need to, everything my girls get their hands on turn into weapons. I loved watching them in their fancy new clothes from their grandma, putting lip gloss on and sword fighting with snap bracelets. Here is how snap bracelet sword fighting works: you sit in a circle with the whole family with your bracelet straight and on the count of three you frantically hit each others bracelets until it curls up, the last one standing with a straight bracelet wins. I'm not gonna lie, it is a dangerous and frightening game but we were laughing so hard. We can't wait to pass The Cousin Box to the next house full of cousins! I think I just needed some surprises in the mail and a good sword fight with my kids because I feel rejuvenated. We have a pretty amazing family in California that makes us all feel pretty special and loved. Thank you so much! :)

I tried to take a picture of all the loot, it came out really really bad but I couldn't get them to sit still because they wanted to play with everything. So here is the best I could do:

Clover Ridge's Habitat Clean Up Day

Melanie's school has this super awesome area where the kids can go learn about plants, animals and more! It needed lots of love and her teacher asked families to come help clean it up. Somehow the rain stayed away long enough for us to scrub down yucky tables, trim brush and widen the pathway. This is what it looked like when we were done.

Behind all these trees is a little shaded area with more tables for the classes to work at. The path winds all around and has bricks with the names of all the plants, flowers and trees. It is a really neat area. It still needs more work but we had lots of fun and hope to go again. Kailah absolutely loves this kind of thing. She was pushing wheelbarrows, weeding, scrubbing tables and widening the trails with all the grown men. A man told me that Kailah worked harder than anyone else today. She is such a good girl. She has learned so much about Oregon and tells us all kinds of geography facts and has lots of plans for things we should see while we live here...especially the volcanoes!

Scrub a dub dub

Kailah showing all the men how to widen the trail :)

The teachers made us hotdogs for lunch and then we checked out the playground.

Melanie showing off her "spider bars" skills

Kailah and Larry during their tether ball tournament

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

Molly has been rolling from her back to her front for a couple of weeks but in the last few days she decided that was boring and now she can roll back over again. Where do babies get the motivation to roll over? It makes them so mad and yet they are determined to be mobile. She makes me laugh, she is such a big faker. She cries as she rolls but as soon as you smile at her and say her name she laughs. She LOVES attention. Anyway, I stepped in the other room for a second and when I returned this is what all that rolling had done...

A Molly burrito

 I guess I can't let her lay on her blankie anymore. :)

Oh Oregon

Several things that make me angry/annoyed and just plain baffled by Oregon:

1. Gas station attendants: At first the idea of not having to pump my gas made me think, "YES! I get to sit on my butt while someone serves me!" And then you discover that the attendants are so slow that I could have pumped my gas and driven back home to California by the time it  is my turn to awkwardly hand them my credit card and lower my eyes in shame as I admit that yes, I only put regular gas in my car...why this embarrasses me, I do not know but I always assume they are judging me as the cheapskate that I really am. :)

2. The Library: Where do I love going most in the world? The library! It gives me butterflies to see and smell all those glorious books. Sadly, Oregon takes issuing library cards VERY seriously. I practically had to give them my next born child to be allowed to get a card. But I have one now suckers! Maybe I will check out all their books (there is no limit) and mail them all to California, muahahahahaha.

3. The Pig Lady at the library: There is this lady that sits in the same chair, in the same position every time we go to the library...oh yeah...and she looks like a pig. It reminds me of the Twilight Zone with the pig people. I think it is called The Beauty Within...check it out, it's super creepy. I know it's mean to call her a pig lady but she is always in the same chair,doing the same thing, I honestly don't think she is even real. I wish I knew what she was reading...

4. Homeless people/hitchhikers: They are EVERYWHERE! Why would so many homeless people migrate to a state that rains all the time? It makes no sense. I have never seen so many hitchhikers in my life. I am so worried that they are going to get picked up by a serial killer that I want to give them a lecture about riding with strangers and then I remember the homeless guy that was grunting at me the other day as I walked by and decide to keep my lectures to myself.

5. Homework: The girls NEVER have homework and yet they seem to be learning. Kailah knows so much about volcanoes and Oregon that she has decided she wants to be a vulcanologist (Larry is so happy) and Melanie is reading better than ever and she is excited about it, very strange. Also, the girls ride the bus...for free. It is nuts. We walk them to the corner and many hours later they are returned to me all in one piece. It amazes me every single day.

6.Grocery stores: everything is expensive here. We drive to Corvallis to shop at WinCo or 20 minutes to Walmart. Walmart is a lil bit creepy bet hey, that's how Walmarts always are, right?

7. One Way Streets: There are far too many one way streets in this town. Every time I go out I am pretty sure I am going to end up driving the wrong direction. Hasn't happened yet but someone told me everyone here has done it at some point...good to know, I guess.

8. The trees...there are trees everywhere and in the last few days they have started changing colors. It is so exciting. We can't wait to see what fall looks like here! I am anxious to decorate for Halloween! :)

I am sure I will add to this list in the near future!

Watch Out! Those balloons are hot!

The annual Art and Air Festival coincided with our arrival in Albany. And it was at the Fairgrounds which are less than a mile from our homestead. Any activity that means I don't have to travel far automatically ups the desirability of said activity. The first night we went to "Night Glow" where a few of the balloons were blown up at night while they played some bad techno music in the background. It was free and I am oddly attracted to anything bright and shiny so I had a good time. And we discovered that Molly LOVES the stroller and falls asleep after being pushed in it for a few minutes. An excellent discovery and one that I am sure will be utilized many times in the future.

The girls right before Night Glow



"Night Glow"



The next morning we got up at 6AM to watch all 36 balloons take off from the fairgrounds and fly past our house. It was pretty spectacular. The last day people paid to have rides in the balloons and some of them were low enough that we were able to wave to the people in the baskets. We can't wait for next year's festival!

This one is a creepy panda head balloon

Portland

I assumed Portland would be full of young Hipsters....a quick digression: I just googled Hipsters so I could add a photo and found a blog about trying to determine if someone is a Hipster or Homeless. And ya know what? Lots of the people we saw in Portland fit that category. Oh that and Bikers. I don't mean leather vest wearing heavyset bearded men, I mean people on bikes. They are EVERYWHERE! And they think they can do whatever they want, like run over my five year old as she gazes at a sparkly river, so distracted by the sparkly wonder that she doesn't realize how close she is to being pancaked into the earth by a crazy Portland biking enthusiast. Anyway, one way streets, homeless looking young people walking their dogs wearing vests and crazy bikers made me decide that Portland is kinda fun to visit but not by myself...oh and maybe not at night.

We went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Invention or OMSI as the locals call it. Seriously, I told someone we went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Invention and they did blinky blinky eyes at me like I was special and then said, "You mean OMSI?" Anywho, we had lots of fun putting weird puzzles together, watching a IMAX movie about Tornadoes and learning about the body.

We also spotted the Portland Temple from the freeway and decided to go take pictures. We got very lost. But we did eventually get our pictures!

Before we could leave Portland I told Larry we had to go to Powell's Books which is this insanely huge book store that covers a whole city block. It was amazing, iy was cheap and I will go back to Portland just to see this store again.

Larry and Kailah's creation

Melanie jumping a bajillion times on an electronic jump rope

Kailah proving that she is super good at balancing

Larry proving that he is really NOT good at balancing

In the market

Melanie's turn to be the cashier

Larry, the girls, a bridge and some sparkly water

Me and the girls

Kailah and I at the Portland Temple

Using cool magnet blocks at OMSI

The New House



Our new abode!



A Garden Spider? A Hobo Spider? We don't know what he is but we don't like him!

Our new house is adorable and we love it. We don't really care much for the spiders that we keep finding. I have NEVER been scared of spiders (well everyone is a little afraid) but these things are MONSTERS and I keep having dreams about them. I also keep having phantom crawly feelings on my legs. I keep thinking I have a ginormous spider in my pants, like the time I had a Sun Spider in my pants and my dad got mad because I didn't sit calmly and call to him so he could kill it, instead I ripped my pants off, shrieking like a maniac and flung the spider (and my pants) across the room. Afterwards I was more afraid of my dad seeing me in my underpants than I was of that spider. Anyway, a person can't go flinging there pants off everytime they feel an itch, especially because the houses in this neighborhood are VERY close together and the neighbors would probably think it was a little odd.

Before Larry's parents left we had a photo session, which was pretty awesome because Larry and his dad both try to weasel their way out of pictures but they couldn't get out of it this time. :) It really was tons of fun to have Larry's family come with us. We were very sad to see them go. We can't wait to have people visit us!

Great Grandma Ruiz, Grandma Ruiz, me and the girls

Molly loved snuggling with her Great Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa Ruiz and our family

3 Larry's, 3 girls

Heading to Oregon!

Our house in Hemet

The morning we left for Oregon I suddenly realized we had never taken our picture in front of our house. This lovely little number is what we have. The suns in our eyes, my contacts refused to go in that early in the morning I was sick with a fever and everyone was annoyed that I was forcing them to be photographed. But hey, I'm the Mama, shouldn't I get to have a picture if I want one? :)

My fabulous in-laws volunteered to drive our U-Haul so our little family could all ride together. U-Haul recommended a truck that was much too small so we had to rent an extra trailer to tow behind the U-Haul like a little caboose. My Grandparents in law decided to drive our other car so we had a fun little caravan up to Oregon. It was so incredibly generous and kind of them all to drive with us and made the move SOOOOO much easier! (especially when it was time to unload all the heavy stuff!)

We had lots of fun on our drive up. We stopped at Mt. Shasta and ate blackberries along the side of the road. Is that considered stealing? I'm not really sure but they were the yummiest blackberries I have ever had!

We were unable to stop by the sign so this is our Welcome to Oregon picture :)

Larry and his donut

We stopped to get gas in Oregon and were happy to discover Hostess jelly filled donuts, something Larry talks about all the time! Good work Oregon! Oh yeah, we also didn't have to pump our own gas, which is nice and strange at the same time.

Oregon

We decided a Master's degree for Larry was a fabulous idea...and it is, but it also means leaving our beautiful home in Hemet, our family and our friends and starting over in unknown territory....YIKES! Oregon State University accepted Larry into their Water Resource Policy program and we were quickly packing and searching for a home, etc. Oh and by the way, I got accepted to OSU too. Oh yeah and we just had a baby. And we already have two other crazy girls.This should be an adventure!

We were headed to Corvallis until we realized how pricey it is there. So we chose a home in Albany, which is right outside Corvallis. We are close to Eugene, Portland and the coast! It should have lots of opportunities for adventure!

Leaving our friends and family has not been an easy concept for me. I LOVE family get togethers and it will be difficult to not be able to see everyone. Plus, it's Oregon!!! Doesn't a journey to Oregon look like this?

So we were headed to Oregon...

I hope we all make it out of this adventure. But we have all played the game, we know what the risks are. Wish us luck!